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On October 7 of this year, President Biden signed an executive order that could affect the security of companies and billions of people on the other side of the Atlantic in the United States and the European Union (EU). Biden reached an agreement with EU President Ursula von der Leyen and signed a revised framework agreement on data privacy between the EU and the US.
This was not the first time that the two countries met over a 2022 EU-US confidentiality agreement.
Initially, Biden and von der Leyen met in March to negotiate confidentiality between two bodies.
During this meeting, the EU discussed their frustration when it came to the US surveillance program and how they felt there were not enough safeguards to share and protect the personal information of European citizens. The meeting focused on the Schrems II case in July 2020, which scrapped a previous transatlantic agreement between Europe and the US that increased the ease with which companies could transfer personal data around the world.
The case came after European-born Max Schrems filed a lawsuit because he believed Facebook had violated his personal privacy because they were able to share his information — and the information of millions of other Europeans — with US intelligence agencies.
The new system not only places greater emphasis on protecting the privacy of current European citizens, but also gives citizens the right to redress when they feel their privacy has been violated. Concerns and cases of data breaches will be dealt with by the newly established Data Protection Review Tribunal.
Improved implementation of citizens’ rights based on the current framework could have a huge impact on platforms like Google Analytics. The tool’s use of users’ IP addresses and web data may be considered a breach of privacy in some European countries, making it difficult for the platform and companies that rely on Google Analytics to advertise their products and generate offers based on user statistics.
“It’s a serious risk to transoceanic trade if these privacy rules are so strict that companies can’t transfer data back to the United States,” said Peter Swire, a professor at the Scheller College of Business and a former member of President Obama’s intelligence review panel. and Communication technologies.
Swire mentioned that at one point in 2020, companies like Facebook were considering pulling out of the European market because of strict privacy laws.
While the current executive order has made it easier for Facebook and other companies to navigate the current market, they are still susceptible to change, as the EU may consider the current system to impose stricter privacy restrictions, as it did in 2020.
Overall, the US has appeared more than willing to work with the EU to address and accommodate their data privacy concerns.
During a White House press release on March 25, President Biden said the new system would “bring our economies and people closer,” demonstrating the US’s efforts to accommodate the EU’s wishes.
The EU and the US are allies; Failure to reach a mutual agreement on privacy could lead to “shutting down a huge number of digital services,” Swire said. This would hurt both sides, as Europe and the US would lose the economic benefit of not trading with each other. That’s why the Joint Framework Agreement is so important, as Swire said failure to do so could shut down transatlantic trade. It is difficult to determine whether the US has lived up to the EU’s privacy expectations, but it is safe to assume that the US has gone to great lengths to “create the legal protections that the European Union has called for,” Swire said.
This new framework could lead to more scrutiny of privacy laws at the state level. In 2004, the California Internet Privacy Act was passed to protect the privacy of residents’ data on online sites.
Since then, Congress and the United States Legislature have been working to pass a bill similar to California’s groundbreaking law. With new EU-US privacy law signed into law, Congress could push for other privacy bills at the national level.
With so many changes in data privacy and government surveillance policies, only time will tell how this new system will affect the lives of US and EU citizens.
Additional information about the data privacy system can be found at whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-to-implement-the-european-union-us-data-privacy-framework/.
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